Loyal Warsmith of the Fourth Legion: Gates of Varl
by deadmansprice
Summary: This is the tale of the loyalist Iron Warriors and a contingent of Word Bearers that actually worship the Emperor. This explores the Gates of Varl, and while the prologue is set in the 30th Millenium, after the Scouring, the rest of the story will be based in the 41st/42nd Millennium. Their interactions with Imperium of Man will be interesting to say the least.
1. Prologue

\- RECORDING: 021.M31 / Recordings of Warsmith Solonius Dimalekis -

Iron Within, Iron Without. How fitting. I take in bitter pride that we stayed Loyal to Emperor in the fires of the Rebellion, unlike most of our Legion. Our pride is made bitter, in that we are loyal sons of a disloyal father, even as we held Perturabo and his forces off near the Gates of Varl. We fought on and on and on, even when a human tactician would have surrendered. We fought on even when most of my Grand Company fell to these oathbreakers. We did not break when they unleashed their new daemon-engines on us from these hell-forges of the Eye. I fought my gene-father himself, with the entire First Company throwing themselves into our duels with all the fury of the penitent men. I cannot say what madness overcame our former unworthy liege but he is no longer our lord. He lost that right to command my Grand Company.

I fought Perturabo, expecting to die, waiting as our fleets hatefully gunned at each other. I fought through the fires and in the rain of the broken pieces of the duelling ships and among the ruins of broken Titans and burning buildings. And now look at us. Alive still. They should not have teleported me, for I am an expendable piece. A number in this ugly war. I appointed more gifted Warsmith than I, yet he tore me away at his expense, dying at the hammerblow of our disloyal father just as it was about to kill me, and I witnessed Perturabo fighting the last of my brothers throwing themselves fanatically. These warriors are the last of those who fought with me since the days of Great Crusade, while my ships launched exterminatus-grade weapons at this world even in their void-duels.

The only reason these traitors have fled was because our disloyal father was banished by the fires of exterminatus. We know he still lives, in the Eye, slaving away to the abominations that dare to call themselves gods, while I? I am the last loyal Warsmith of the Fourth Legion who ever fought in the Great Crusade as far as I know. And I am the last one of my Grand Company who hails from Olympia. The only living Iron Warriors hail from the Varlian regions have never even fought in the ending days of Great Crusade before the Rebellion broke out. But still, my warriors all.

This is the tale of 147th Grand Company. The remaining sons of Olympia who remained loyal to Throneworld. We who threw off the oathbreakers off our walls, pushed back the tides of Xenos and caged the horrors to the Varlian regions. The last Throne-loyal remnant of Iron Warriors, with the contingent of Word Bearer fanatical worshippers of Emperor, beloved by all.

We held the traitors and xenos off both even as we fought to contain the abominations of Varl from spreading to the galaxy. Even now, I can see the armies of Imperium of Man that gather and unknowingly guard the Gates of Varl, yet even they would not be able to contain these horrors, and so we must. We must hold to the duty last given to us by our once-sire Perturabo, when he was loyal to the Throne, and given with the blessings of the Emperor. That was only order we held fast to. The only thing I have left. They should have left me die, and be the ones to teach them. But I remain and so I must.

And the sons of Lorgar? We sheltered these distraught fanatics after determining their loyalty to Emperor, beloved by all and found it true. They were the ones who kept our morale up, even mine. Together, we banished that cursed traitor Lorgar and threw his oathbreakers off our worlds, as we prevented our once-lords from unleashing the horrors onto the galaxy. To this day, they call him the Arch-Heretic of the Disloyal. For these, these fanatical penitent sons devoted themselves to my command.

Despite all this, we still clung to our true duty: Guarding the Gates of Varl, holding the line here, before the folly of our fathers unleashes these things on the galaxy The nightmares here must not be allowed even a chink lest they ravage the galaxy. Only Emperor, beloved by all, can relieve us of this duty.

If you have seen what I have seen in the Varlian regions, you would understand why we decided to guard the Gates of Varl, even when the armies of Imperium of Man now begin to cluster just at the edges of the Gates, while we held the Deep Regions. You would know why we decided to hold on, even during the Scouring, and even when our Legion at the galaxy is considered heretics and traitors to the Throne.

These Iron Warriors newly recruited within Varlian regions will be taught our old ways, but be also taught the lessons we learned, and another way as this war against the Varlian horrors reminded me the humanity that I had forgotten when Perturabo forced us to decimate one of our own. All must be learnt and improved. We must adapt with the will of the Iron Warriors forcing the horrors brack, because if we stick to old ways of decimation, then we lose Varl to the C'tan nightmares. We literally cannot afford to do this now. Not when the disloyal brothers lay siege to our walls, and the xenos leap into our battlefields, while we defend the large energy fields that hold these nightmares in check.

Of course, in the years to come, they will suspect our presence, and the rumours of an independent Iron Empire within Varl… If needed, we may need to hold even Imperium of Man at bay as well, since even now, I hear they lost knowledge of what's within the Varlian region, and our reports have gone unanswered, considered to be the "lies of the heretics and traitors". We will have no choice… but to hold it, even down to the last loyal Iron Warrior or Word Bearer, for we must.


	2. The Premonitions

\- RECORDING: 999.M41+ / Recordings of Warsmith Gallius Ferrum -

Undaunted Wardens. That is what they call us. Even at our beginnings, my people have always called these earliest Iron Warriors led by the First Warsmith of Varl, Solonius Dimalekis. Appropriate for this is what we are. Undaunted by our foes beset on our sides and the horrors in the Gates of Varl. The Varlian Iron Empire have been steadily building up, continuing our Great Crusade, despite the internal troubles. Some Warsmiths have called for war on Imperium of Man for abandoning the loyalist Iron Warriors, and for more worlds to recruit for our Grand Company.

Fortunately for both of us, that is always refused by the Council of Varl, the rulers of the Iron Empire of Varl created by the First Warsmith of the Hundred and Forty-Seventh Grand Company, or by now, Emperor's Last Grand Company. That Council is the ruling figurehead of our empire, headed by the First Warsmith of Varl. Every rare Warsmiths whose will is unyielding and incorruptible despite the eternal stare of the Eye, has headed the post of First Warsmith. Although at times, that post has been vacant for centuries at at a time.

Even though our Iron Empire of Varl, separate from Imperium of Man, we still remain loyal to the Emperor, in the memory of the first throne-Loyal Iron Warriors. Most of the time, it had been just disagreements, but It did cause some civil wars within the Varlian regions, and in some cases, some of the Grand Company were executed, but for those who fled, they fled to the Eye, though some did also flee to Maelstrom. Those who returned, had become the same as the traitors who fought the first of us who refused our former liege's command to betray the Emperor, and we either executed them, or fought them, though not before they caused significant damage to our realm, with some of our dwindling assets lost to us permanently.

Worst of all, some even converted entire worlds into twisted versions of our fortresses, and they had corrupted many of our systems. These faithless curs had tried to persuade us that Chaos was the only way to prevent, or even to free us from being locked into the cage of our own making. They were taught and made to see the twisted versions of our teachings. To forget the truth. Because of this we decided to take similar approach as the Imperium of Man's inquisition's tactics with these worlds. Better to weaken ourselves for a time being than to allow that taint to destroy us. We do not chant nor cheer for this. Like the rest of the traitors, they do not deserve to hear our words.

Know this, xenos that face us will typically meet our war cries, for we are and will always be the Emperor's Iron Warriors. But to the Iron Warriors serving the Warp Abominations, they only meet our silence, for they do not deserve our war cry. Only cold hatred in us, far stronger than our own disdain for the aliens is far more than enough. We do not hate the aliens as much as we do hate the traitors. We do not hate the Imperium of Man despite our little skirmishes, nor hate them for when they have cast us off. They're not the Imperium of Great Crusade. It has died, and what replaces it is an empire of superstition and decay. We do not hate the Emperor for we are still his creations. His weapons. No. We truly, and I do mean we truly hate Perturabo for introducing weakness in our legion, against our Emperor's orders. And our silent, purest hatred is for our brethren who chose to fall into weakness as slaves of Chaos. That is how much we hate them above all other traitors and xenos.

It still troubles me that there are some sympathizers still within our Grand Company for the Perturabo's side even now. Always, we've refused to rejoin his oathbreakers, for we see ourselves as the last Iron Warrior and Word Bearers holdout loyal to Emperor since the beginning. Somehow It was these Word Bearer Chaplains has kept us true to our oaths, even if we don't exactly worship the Emperor. We're Iron Warriors after all, you have to remember that that quite unfortunately, we are sons of a loathful father who has lost himself to his own weakness.

Anyway, to my story. This is right before the Great Rift broke out. I ignored the signs. But then back then, I was a sargeant, not a Warsmith yet then. I did not aspire for it, as I was content to stick to guarding my world against the abominations of the Core.

The reason why I ignored the signs was because we were arming ourselves for another conflict against the deathless xenos, especially recently, we were assailed from within the Deep Regions of Varl again, from the Core. Several worlds fell to these inexorable advances of the mechanical horrors. Several of our fortifications had been taken control of, and to preserve our remaining fleet assets, we subjected these worlds to exterminatus. Better to lose a few worlds and sacrifice millions than to see them take control of the worlds and infect our fortifications.

We did not watch for the signs, as we have been culling our own psykers here in the core for a long time, for the greater good, sparing only the rare powerful figures for our Word Bearer chaplains. We do not have our own librarians, so these Word bearers would have to suffice, though they're a fanatical lot still. Always have been. The culling was a necessity as in our records, it only takes a small group to form a crack in the energy prison that can awaken the slumbering C'tan abomination before they ravage our bastions.

We did not care for the psykers much since their reliability in the Gates of Varl has always veered to the point of unreliability, forcing us to travel in sub-light speeds. Even now, there's something at the Core that affects all the regions, in making Warp Travel impossible, Gates of Varl is not the only one, and that's even with the Varlian anomalies shrouding our realm.

Frankly, we really should have paid attention. We are a data-driven Legion, all of us. Even the traitors in the Legion. These perfidious bastards actually forced us to alter the layouts of our cities every century so often and such because we know that as much as we gather on the composition of their forces, and their daemonic allies, they gather their data on us, and we've learnt that hard way since their invasions in the thirty-second to thirty-third Millennium, which ravaged two-third of all of our Varlian fortresses when we incorrectly assumed that due to their Eye-born madness, they no longer gathered data on us.

We did not listen to the Solonius, when he warned us about the oathbreakers, after he commanded our fleets in the the void wars against the predatory fleets of Anrakyr the Traveller, dying after duelling the blue-glowing silver lord of these abominations though that Traveller suddenly left, with a single message in high gothic which we suspect he has pilfered our database somehow when the traitors couldn't break through our encryption. " _This conflict was in error. We see now what you are guarding"_. He would be the first of those that invaded the Iron Realm of Varl.

So again, I will say this, we did not pay attention to the signs. We've had records by our Word Bearer chaplains when they reported to our Warsmiths about the anomaly of 8 by 8 psykers dying in the 8th year of every century since the beginning of the year 908 of M.41, among the other hundred anomalies that seem to have increased very exponentially, leading up to 999.M41+

And illogically, though not impossibly, given the nature of the Warp, we have been having strange and disturbing dreams of the Eye of Terror staring at us, mocking us for our continued loyalty to the Imperium even though it had long since forsaken us. We've written these records, especially noting the significant trends that seemed to increase century by century, though it is still fortunate that only Warsmiths and Legionaries on track to becoming Warsmith only feel the stare of the Eye, which is very few. Coincidentally, I had that dream right before I landed on Ghelsis IV.

We chose not to act on them, and investigate. We had much more pressing concerns, as the 147th Grand Company, or becoming increasingly known as the Emperor's Last Grand Company, the "Undaunted Wardens", had been beset by all forces, though Imperium of Man and Iron Empire of Varl had allied a few times, especially against the grand biological horrors known to Imperium as Tyranids. For most parts, it is fortunate that only few skirmishes between Iron Warriors and Imperium of Man were fought. We kept to our realms. Yet that was not enough for us to investigate the signs. The fleeing of the mortals to our realms from the Imperium's beset territories, and some surviving Astartes Chapters had began to seek out a place in the Iron Realm, after having suffered rather extensive losses when we tested them, ensuring they are well and truly loyal to Emperor. It has surprised some of them, especially the sons of Dorn who expected to fight us. Yet we ignored the signs for at that time, our internal concerns far outweighed the external concerns.

The signs that the Eye was going to open up, and how increasingly frequent the Decimation had become. Forbidden except under specific circumstances. That we had to use the decimation to kill our Warsmiths, in fact, the Iron Council agreed to it because most Warsmiths slowly descended to madness after that prolonged exposure to the stare of the Eye of Terror. The earliest Warsmiths at the throes of madness begged to institute that Decimation, before they turned a portion of the Grand Company upon us in their insanity. Some threw themselves into the most suicidal combat possible, screaming Emperor's name. The first-known effects occurred within our records in the late 33rd millennium though I suspect it may have happened earlier. I will present the records later. After all, the last loyal sons of Perturabo must not forget all this.

And these unfortunate Warsmiths who actually survived, went into madness, killing some of their captains before the survivors rallied and killed them off, and almost affected the overall stability of our empire. Though in some cases, some of these survivors went mad themselves, and several Battalions were lost in executing them. Although It's better to die fighting, on your feet, with your mind intact than to slowly lose what remains of your mind to madness and having to be put down like mad dog by your brothers, and the infinite shame of bringing others with you in your own madness.

It wasn't long before the post of Warsmith became undesired since the Great Varlian Schism in the late 34th millenium, associated with many bad omens, and the tragedies. And unfortunately for us, the number of Iron Warriors feeling Eye staring down on them continued to exponentially increase, though by the grace of the Emperor, that number is still low..

Unfortunately for myself, I felt the stare of the Eye on me I led my squad onwards through the killing fields against the Necron forces in Ghelsis IV, a star system far away from the capital system of our Empire, after the death of my last sargeant. At that time, I was part of the 3rd Battalion of the 147th Grand Company, in our continued version of Great Crusade at the Core. In fact, I suspect I was destined for this position of Warsmith. It is said that all Warsmiths of the 147th can feel it, even if we do not state it loudly.

I first felt it's stare when we moved our Iron Auxilia and Iron Warriors, digging in trenches under the gauss fire, with our tanks at the first and second lines supporting our advance. The Eye started pressing in the back of my mind as if showing me where it was. Mocking me for my continued loyalty to Emperor of Imperium of Man, and my duty to Iron Empire of Varl. It troubled me because I knew of it when we studied it as the aspirants before we became Legionnaires. I remember Legionary Castellus asking me for orders. I was about to give him an order, when I felt the stare of the Eye on me, and I could hear the distant laughter of the the abominations that dare to call themselves gods. My orders died away.

Legionary Castellus, May Emperor bless his soul, shook me back to reality, screaming my name. He knew what I already suspected, even despite the fact I was in my full armour, as my reaction to this new and unwanted sensation was typical of other Iron Warriors who rose to become Warsmith of the 147th Grand Company. Each and every Warsmiths have their appointed successors who have the baleful stare of the Eye boring down on them.

That momentary lapse almost got us killed, and I had to refocus after we fought off the fresh waves of the screaming bombers of the Necron forces. Because of this and of the Eye boring down my mind, I redoubled my will, muttered "Iron within, Iron without" and then ordered the Iron Auxillia move forward to soak up Necrons fire alongside the legion breacher siege squads. They moved in waves, as we moved forward, setting up our heavy weapons team wherever we could. We opted to operate autonomously by squad levels in coordination with every warriors in the field, with Auxillia regiments marching behind our breacher squads that were strategically placed at the front to draw as much fire as they can, regardless of the terrain.

I could hear the cruel laughter of the abominations as we fought, stalling the Necron advance to our lines. I wanted to fight and die on my feet, with my mind intact, than to let the Eye-borne madness slowly overtake my mind as I've seen happening to the former Warsmiths, and infect my Battalion, but right now, I was commanding my Iron Auxilia, and my Warriors did not show the signs that they were affected. Only me, though I continued commanding my small forces back, as the breacher squads advanced forward, with new experimental shields similar to the ones used in Great Crusade, designed to withstand the torrents of gauss flayer weapons. It appears that experiment wasn't working too well, and I could tell some of them, if any had survived, were going to file their reports, with some complaints to our mechanicum associates.

We spent hours holding off these things, as our lines slowly moved backwards on multiple battlefields, ensuring that while necrons advanced, they paid heavily for every little gains they made on us even though these honorless machines kept rising from the dead. We noted after researching our data, being shared between several Grand Battalions on every world in this system, and our fleets, that these particular necrons appeared to be moving onwards, with mass wave tactics in their attempts to use shock value of seemingly undying troops. It may have worked on other foes, but not us and our Auxilia. These mortals have been put through stringent training, and had their wills reshaped. They endure, similarly to the legendary Death Korps of Krieg for they understand the horrors within the Varlian Deep Regions. And yes, we've heard of the Death Korps of Krieg. Our human equivalents.

As we retreated, we fought off their crescent-shaped bombers that struck at us on regular intervals. It was becoming a battle of arithmetic, which we excel at, as we are very willing to throw numbers until our foes are defeated, if properly managed. As our Iron Auxilia pulled back, with the Legion Breacher squads holding the line as baits, we ensured they walked into our traps.

We did all this to have our techmarines and the Mechanicum techpriests work on generating the vicious kind of scrapcode attacks, a new radical tactic that was deemed to be necessary, as the Necrons had become problematically familiar with our standard tactics and attack patterns and because of this, had been able to conquer and take over several of our fortress worlds. We turned to this resort because these things adapted quickly to our tactics, turning this war against us. This scrapcode was extremely vicious and a very reason why we never employed it is it's ability to corrode multiple systems and turn the systems against the users, and can also affect us. Even to us Astartes, these things can terrify us, and it truly takes a lot to terrify us.

This is one of the main reasons why we had to ignore these signs about the Eye opening, as our Word Bearer Chaplains were needed on all warfronts to morale reasons, to encourage us and our Iron Auxilia. Normally, they would give us the signs, but we had to assign some of the Chaplains who warned us that we needed to focus on the Eye.

While we held the line, our tyrant siege terminators began to support our position with the intense bombardment, with the aerial support in place to keep our attritional rates to acceptable levels. Our second lind had been rapidly creating the trenches while the first line had been used to attract all the attention. Third and fourth were to support our advance while we created the static defenses for the rest of the Auxilia to use. And we had multiple lines situated far away from us, advancing on their own sides. These Necron abominations acted according to our expectations, thus we did not expect them to otherwise, disregarding the few reports about their strange anomalies amongst them.

We were not so sure about their tactics now, when they suddenly reacted with an unexpected tactic: Somehow the monoliths tore through the ground, which affected our ground deployments greatly and in that moment, I had orders to retreat. Unfortunately, that was too late, because these monoliths, freshly risen from the ground rooted themselves and emitted the all-too-familiar sounds of Eternity gates opening, with these familiar marching sounds of Necron reinforcements incoming. Other Battalions reported similar situations on other continents and in other worlds as well. All beset by the threat that seemed to be intent on taking over the Westward of the Varlian regions, and just about intent as we are to liberate this region despite our voyage between the singularity hazard zones in the void.

In the regions of the Core, particularly the Gates of Varl, the control of space does not matter here, as much as it does everywhere else. Worlds are of the paramount importance, which is why we could not afford to launch exterminatus on it even though some of us wanted to.

We prepared to sell our lives dearly as our offensives stalled here on Ghelsis IV and the worlds nearest to the sun. As the last ranking sergeant of my group, I added to our growing reports that it is more prudent for the our Iron Crusade fleet to retreat from Kubo Primus star system, and regroup in the nearby star system called Autárkeia Delta. Ghelsis IV was one of the habitable worlds in it, as we knew inwardly that any further attempts would spell doom.

In fact, these monoliths have summoned a single cairn-class ship, with its attendant ships. That fleet was more than enough to doom our efforts here. We witnessed that ship launch it's nightmarishly familiar green salvoes at our fleet from the atmosphere. At once, our Battlebarges maneuvered, and our Fleet Master at that time activated the Magnetite Protocol, with all present units to evacuate to the fleet for redeployment elsewhere.

With this unexpected tactic used by the Necrons, I had filed all the reports I could, forwarding them to our fleet, with all the indications that these were not the warriors of Anrakyr the Traveller returned, nor any Dynasties that had simply left us alone when they realised what lay in the Gates of Varl. No, these Necrons had far more decency and typically reacted with all the attack patterns. Even those that persisted eventually left, when they learnt what lies within the Core Regions of Varl.

Something was different. Initially, these things did act accordingly to the recognised attack patterns, sieging our incomplete fortresses in star system, but that in hindsight, even as I fought them in the group, even I could see their movements were different. More organic, as in more…. Animated and fanatical, as opposed to the standard mindlessness of these soulless abominations. In some instances, I wondered if I imagined it, but likely not, for some came garbed sinisterly in the outfit of priests.

Too similar to the tech priests of Mars, as if… they were taken and remoulded into similar forms. I looked to my warriors, and to Legionary Castellus. "If I do fall, either by their weapons, or by the stare of the Eye… let me die as a legionary. Do not entomb me. Do not subject me to a fate of a Dreadnought, no matter what" I asked Castellus before ordering him to lead the rest of my squad away, as our last Stormbirds and thunderhawks were moving into my zone to exfiltrate the essentials "See to Warsmith Alexios that you are promoted to Captain, Legionary."

Those were my last orders, as I prepared myself to die with the Iron Warriors from other Battalions and I could see many of them were ordering the same thing "Assist the evacuation and get out. Protect the future of the seventh Battalion". Seven Battalion. My Battalion. I was the last ranking officer of it who somehow ended up leading what remained of the entire battalion after my Captain died, and several other sargeants that were ambushed by the machine abominations, leaving a few retreating to Third Line. Castellus looked at me, and I know he wanted to refuse my orders, to stand with me and die, but he knew I would force him, and could see the logic I presented him with. I could see other legionaries looking at me and Castellus, unsure. Increasingly, even the sargeants looked to me for leadership. I suspect it was both the stare of the Eye and the presence of contemptors that began to approach me that caused them to look to me for orders.

Castellus dallied a few seconds longer than it needed to be when our surviving remaining contemptor dreadnoughts strode aside, booming in their voice "Sergeant Gallius, know that we will stand with you. You feel the Eye on you, don't you?" I looked at him and could feel the Eye on these Contemptors. Together with them, somehow I could hear the mournful songs, that drowned out the distant but distinct laughter of the Chaos Abominations. I knew then the rumours that these dreadnoughts, the former surviving aids and Warsmiths who have somehow survived the Decimation and were entombed in these things. It appears it's true.

As our First line collapsed, the contemptors turned to me "Where would you have us, Sargeant Gallius?", and at same time, I heard one of the contemptors advising Castellus to follow my orders. There was no captain to take orders from. Our Battalions present on this world had no captains left. and Castellus had more gift towards leadership than I did even though I had more experience in waging wars against many xenos for centuries, and in long term, he could lead fleets back here and avenge us in this field.

Knowing the Xenos as our second line became engaged in vicious melee and close quarters fighting, I ordered the Contemptor dreadnoughts to advance, and take the bulk of fire, while the Legion Breacher Squads moved ahead of the dreadnoughts, and our Iron Auxilia following in waves, shooting in disciplined volleys. The Stor-Bezashk on the Third and Fourth lines moved to defend the evacuation points regardless of our positions by my orders, and our vehicles were to move onwards, and even other Sargeants asked for my orders. Not one of them felt the Eye. Only the dreadnoughts and I did.

There were no challenges nor anyone taking orders. In fact, they came to me, and asked. In that moment, I well and have truly wished that I did not obsessively use the hololiths to practice my tactics and strategies overall, since I do know that DID attract the attention of my captain and other legionaries. I did this to improve my performance again, as I wanted to adapt to all the roles. Many Iron Warriors noted I had been very obsessive in improving myself, having not really socialised with many of them. I did this while most if not every Iron Warrior in our ships were practicing their individual skills, because many criticized me for my poor commanding skills and strategic and tactics, stating I was better off as a line legionary, as one of the prerequisites for becoming a member of the Legion Breacher Siege Squads.

I did this out of spite to them, obsessively going over details, neglecting to practice my melee skills. I hadn't talked to anyone except higher-ranked. I was very absorbed in this when I kept increasing the difficulty to the point that my Captain and other Legionaries had to drag me away a few times by force. I was warned this by Chaplain Zelus when we talked about our trainings.

He warned that if I did not desire this Warsmith position truly, then I needed to stop this obsession with the tactics and strategy, as well as coordinating with my simulated units in theoretical vs practical mindset, after reading the ancient book written by Guilliman, and studying the Codex. Remember how I said the psykers of the Varl were dubious at best in their reliability? This was an attitude ingrained in me when he said if I continued as it were, the Eye would stare on me when it opened up, and I would find myself in the position leading the Iron Warriors. I did not believe in his premonitions. Like I said before, it is easy to be disbelieving of the psykers of Varl. In this instance, I was wrong.

Somehow, I was giving orders, basing this off the countless hours spent in the simulations against many variations of Necrons in my ship. In all, Our lines slowly retreated, with our last stormbirds and thunderbirds retreating. I knew inside, that I had made my own choice long before I ever landed on this world, obsessing over this strategic and tactical leadership. What a fool I was, because I ended up being somehow responsible for the remnants of the Iron Warriors and Iron Auxilia forces here, while my squad led me back to the now-filled evacuation pads here since there would be no more stormbirds and thunderbirds to evacuate us. In that end, we readied ourselves, as we chanted our war cry "Iron within! Iron without!" as we held our line here against the Necron abominations, determined to force them to focus on us while our fleets retreated to mandeville point, to jump to Autárkeia Delta, and abandon Kubon Delta. We had reports that other Iron Warrior remnants were doing the same on other worlds, following my example. At that time, It was the first time I prayed to the Emperor that I did not get thrust to the position of Warsmith. He had other plans.


End file.
